Merseyside fire stations have been left empty because there are not enough staff to man them, the region’s top firefighter admitted.

Budgets cuts of around £20m since 2010 mean there are now sometimes too few fire officers on duty to staff all Merseyside stations all the time.

Merseyside fire service has lost 286 firefighters over the past four years, according to trade union leaders, mainly as retiring officers have not been replaced.

Dan Stephens, Merseyside’s Chief Fire Officer, told the Sunday ECHO in an exclusive interview: “We have 40 to 50 firefighters at any given time who are injured or ill and are not able to ride fire engines.

“When you take all these people out of the equation, it has quite a significant impact on our service – especially while our numbers have been reducing anyway due to the cuts.”

Mr Stephens says four or five firefighters are needed to crew a fire engine, but Government cutbacks and illness mean these numbers are not always achieved at some stations.

He said: “If we don’t have enough people to staff a fire station then we lose the fire engines there. That station is effectively closed for the day.

“This has actually happened here in Merseyside – there have been times when we have had fire engines at stations which are not available.”

Mr Stephens continued: “I cannot afford to employ more people but we need to do something about this situation.”

He is planning to offer firefighters extra cash to sign retain contracts – meaning they can be called in at short notice while off-duty in the event of a fire.

This means a fire station that would otherwise have to close for the day due to short-staffing could be kept in use.

Merseyside fire brigade engines

The Chief Fire Officer said: “We will be relying on people who are off duty to take retain contracts.

“I am trying to improve the situation in the most pragmatic way possible.

“We already use these retain contracts with our urban search and rescue team based in Croxteth.

“All it means is that more of my staff are available at any one time to respond in the event of an emergency.

“This will give me professional, fully trained staff – unlike at other fire services which use volunteers when they do not have enough full-time staff.

“In Merseyside we are trying to avoid using volunteers.

“We want a very high level of competence and skills to deliver the best service we can in the face of significant financial challenges.”

Mr Stephens added: “Switching to the use of retained crews is an alternative to closing the station.”

Protests against fire service cuts are currently taking place across the country as part of the Ring of Fire campaign led by the Fire Brigades Union, which represents rank-and-file officers.

Matt Wrack, the union’s general secretary, visited Liverpool last week to launch the campaign.

He described the cuts as “devastating” and claimed they were leading to longer response times for members of the public after dialling 999.

He claimed: “The ability to do the job safely is being undermined and this puts lives at risk.”

The Department for Communities and Local Government defends the cuts to fire budgets by saying fire call-outs and deaths are at an all-time low.

A statement, issued in response to the Ring of Fire campaign’s claims, said: “In the last decade there has been a 40% reduction in call-outs and incidents.

“Every bit of the public sector must play a part in cutting the deficit and there is significant scope for fire and rescue authorities to make sensible savings.”

More misery to come

Merseyside fire chiefs are braced for waves of cuts for years to come, the Sunday ECHO can reveal.

Merseyside fire service must slash another £6.5m from its budget next year as a result of central government funding reductions.

The region’s firefighters have already seen cuts of around £20m since 2010.

But Chief Fire Officer Dan Stephens believes there could be another five years of austerity to come after 2015, potentially leading to another 100 job cuts.

He said: “We have cut £20m up to this point with another £6.5m to come from next April.

“If the trajectory of cuts continues, we will have to make another £15m of savings up to and including 2020.

“We have to get rid of 100 fire posts in 2015/16 and go from 28 fire engines to 24.

“If we have to cut another £15m after 2015 then it’s not inconceivable we would have to take out another 100 posts.

“Then 2020 would be the end game at which point we would have about 600 firefighters left.

“We have got 26 fire stations now, that will reduce to 22 in 2015/16 and by 2020 we could be down to around 18.”

But Mr Stephens is holding out hope that growth will one day return. He said: “I hope during my tenure there will be the opportunity to grow again by taking on more firefighters. I want youngsters to see this as a career they can have.”